by Sam Amick, USA TODAY Sports

by Sam Amick, USA TODAY Sports

HOUSTON - Dwight Howard might be known as "Superman," but he'll be drawing inspiration from another superhero during his debut season with the Houston Rockets: Batman.

And isn't that ironic? The 27-year-old whose physical feats in his early NBA years were like something out of a DC Comic - the bounding leaps, bulging muscles and extraordinary feats - is now using its stories for spiritual guidance.

As he sits on a couch inside Toyota Center, which he now calls his basketball home, discussing his decision to leave the Los Angeles Lakers that was so hard to make but so easy to understand, he recalls the words that rang so true.

"I actually wrote (them) down and can tell it to you - it's from Batman," Howard tells USA TODAY Sports. "Batman and Alfred were having a discussion (in the 2012 Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises), and Batman didn't like what was going on and he felt like the best thing he could do was just hide.

"Alfred told him, 'You have to endure it. You have to take it. People will hate you for it, but that's the point of being a legend. You can be that outcast. You can make the choice that no one else can make, and that's the right choice.' "

The choice to leave one of the NBA's most storied franchises.

"I kind of took that with me in this situation in L.A.," he continues. "It was hard, something that most people wouldn't have done, because they're looking at the whole situation and people are going to think that I'm running (from the pressure), and people are going to think this or that.

"But I'm like, 'Man, I want to be this legend, I want to be at the top. So I have to endure all that hate, all that criticism. I have to take it, and that's what's going to make me the person and the player I am.' "

Much like the Rockets themselves, Howard sees that scene as a perfect fit for his story. The protagonist plays the part of antagonist for the good of the masses - in this case Rockets fans who are so hopeful that they can enjoy a championship for the first time since back-to-back titles in 1994 and 1995.

Over time, Howard thinks, people will see why the move should be praised: Because he left an extra $30 million behind in Los Angeles in order to pursue a title now, and because - after all those justifiable claims that he had become someone who was putting his business interests ahead of basketball - he is eschewing the Hollywood spotlight that never lived up to its allure.

"As you get older, you start to think about the business side of things, and not just basketball," Howard says. "And the first couple years, it was all about basketball and growing. And then, just a little bit of business and marketing and sales and all that stuff started to come in, and the mind-set wasn't just basketball anymore.

"It was basketball growing the business and making more money - all that stuff. Sometimes that can cloud the basketball if you let it. A lot of people were in my ear (during his Orlando Magic days) about being in a bigger place and bringing more dollars in and all that stuff. ... But I started realizing that you never can despise small beginnings. Everything in Orlando came from little Orlando, and I looked at a guy like Kevin Durant in Oklahoma City, and look what he has done just being there."

The relentless desire to play in a bigger market that he thought would help him become a "global icon," as he always called it, would prove a foolhardy pursuit.

"Especially in this day and age, it's not all about where you play," Howard says. "And that was a good lesson. Unfortunately, I had to learn that lesson in front of the whole world, and the whole world sees your flaws and sees your mistakes and they judge you for it."

Houston's high hopes

No one's judging him in Houston.

Everywhere you turn, there's no mistaking the fact that Howard has officially arrived.

His Godzilla-sized likeness is plastered on a four-story-tall poster just outside Toyota Center that reads "Legacy of Bigs," with Howard overlooking the likes of Yao Ming, Hakeem Olajuwon, Ralph Sampson, Elvin Hayes and Moses Malone. The real-life version of Howard has made plenty of appearances, too, none more unexpected than his visit with teammate Chandler Parsons to a local high school football game recently that sent the locals into a frenzy.

But when it comes to the path that brought him here, the July 5 announcement that he had decided to leave the Lakers and an extra $30 million behind in Los Angeles, he wants to make one thing clear that wasn't on that day: He never waffled.

Howard was on a plane from Aspen, Colo., to Los Angeles when news reports claimed - despite a USA TODAY Sports report revealing his decision to join the Rockets - he was having second thoughts. The news sparked the latest public bashing of Howard on social media, with fans and news media alike criticizing him for what appeared to be another dose of unnecessary drama. The problem, Howard said, is that it never happened.

"That was not the case," Howard says. "I was very upset about it when all that stuff started to come out, because that's not what was going on. I decided â?¦ the night before it came out, and my thinking was, 'Let me get back to L.A. and sit in front of Mitch (Kupchak, Lakers general manager) and give the Lakers that respect.' I wanted to tell them in person.

"There was no (thought of), 'Oh man, hold up, let me think about this again.' The night before, when I had decided, I sat down with everybody - my agent, my best friend who was there and my bodyguard, and we talked. I said this is where I want to go. I told my dad that this is where I want to go. I said tomorrow, when I get home, we're going to talk to the Lakers. I'm going to tell the other teams on the phone, and that's what I did."

For all the missteps Howard had made in recent years, this plan seemed sound. He had met with the Rockets, Lakers, Golden State Warriors, Dallas Mavericks and Atlanta Hawks inside a Bel Air hotel, then retreated to the Rocky Mountains to make his decision with a clear mind. After talking to Kupchak, with whom he had an extremely positive relationship, he would announce his decision to the world on Twitter.

"I just didn't like the way that it happened," Howard says. "I wanted to wait as long as possible until I talked to the Lakers. I didn't want Mitch to turn on his TV or get an e-mail from somebody saying this is what Dwight did and I didn't contact him first. I wanted to give him the respect, and the Lakers the respect, in telling them before it got put out there.

"I felt like for them it wouldn't have been personal enough. They were the team that decided to take me from Orlando, so I wanted to give them that respect - especially Mitch, because that was somebody who I had conversations with all summer. I wanted to let him know personally and to thank him for the opportunity to play for the Lakers."

As for why he didn't take the opportunity to continue playing for the Lakers, time - or Father Time, to be more precise - played as big a part as any. Howard clearly saw 24-year-old James Harden as a more worthy running mate than 35-year-old Kobe Bryant. And while the notion that the Lakers kingdom could eventually be his after Bryant retired years from now and fellow superstars were brought to town was appealing, Howard learned last season that he had no time to wait.

Despite playing in 76 games and in the Lakers' first-round playoff loss to the San Antonio Spurs, Howard - who had back surgery in April 2012 - wasn't himself physically for most of the season. And while he's much closer to full strength this time around, he's not getting any younger.

"A lot of people say, 'Well, if you would've waited a couple years, then this could've been yours (with the Lakers),' And I'm like, 'In a couple years, I'm 30,' " Howard says. "I don't want to wait. I've been in the league 10 years. I don't want to wait for things to happen. I want to be aggressive, to make things happen. And I'm looking at all these young guys who are just ready, and they're missing one piece. And I'm like, 'I could be that piece, and I don't want to miss my chance.'"

The Rockets, to review, were fresh off a surprising 45-37 regular-season finish and a first-round playoff loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder in which they looked like an up-and-coming-group in the Western Conference.

"James Harden doesn't come by every 10 years; it doesn't happen," Howard says. "It's no knock on other players who I played with, but you're talking about all these guys who are young and are going this way, going up, so I'm like, 'Man, this is a great spot for me. A great town, great organization.' They're going this way (points up)."

Even with all the mystique that came with the Lakers and their 16 NBA championships, Howard went with the franchise that fit him now.

"Other teams have more history, but yesterday's scores don't win today's games," he says. "You've got to look at the now. What's in the now? What can we do now? Nobody cared about what I did eight years ago, they want to know what I can do now, and it's the perfect team for me."

Fitting in well

There will always be a honeymoon stage for a new free agent arrival, but Howard and his new teammates are showing all the signs of a healthy marriage.

Point guard Jeremy Lin made a special trip to Aspen during the summer to get acquainted with Howard, the two of them working out together with coach Kevin McHale and others while just hanging out. Harden organized workouts in Los Angeles that included Howard and several other Rockets players. And once the group all met in Houston, an impromptu visit to a local high school football game - by way of Twitter prodding from some students - said everything about Howard's willingness to become a man of the new people.

"We do have very similar personalities - he's always happy, and he should be," Parsons tells USA TODAY Sports. "I think people are just a little mistaken by the fact that he's smiling and (acting like) a little goofball, but that's not him at all. He wants to win. He's a good leader. At every meeting, he's the one standing up and talking. I think he's just misperceived a little bit.

"He's going to help you become a better player. He's going to lead by example. I think he has definitely been misjudged his whole career, and I'm happy that he has a fresh start here to play with a group of guys who are similar in his age and also fun."

Says Harden, whose trade from Oklahoma City to Houston last year sparked the Rockets' turnaround: "Last year people didn't know â?¦ if I could have my - quote, unquote - own team. I kind of proved a lot of people wrong last year, and they're looking forward to seeing what I'm going to do this year. And with Dwight, it's the same way.

"It's for both of us to make sure that the team is on the same page at all times. In practices, we're focused and locked in on things we need to get done.

"I think that's the reason I'm so excited about this training camp is I have another guy who has been through the experience, who knows what it takes to get to the Finals right next to me. â?¦ He's going to teach me some things that I don't know. And I'll teach him some things that he doesn't know. That's the kind of partnership and friendship we're going to have in order to be successful."